galcivfandomcom-20200213-history
Gameplay
A work in slow progress ;-) Please be patient. The 4X games Game Galactic Civilizations falls into the category of 4X games. Those 4X stand for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate: * Explore: find what's in your space and beyond, to plan your development properly. * Expand: take what you find as fast as you can. The goal here is to simply GRAB EVERYTHING. If you don't, others will. The one who grabs the most will in the long run win. The catch in 4x games is this phase shall NEVER end. You must grow and expand until you win. * Exploit: develop what you get, use whatever means you have available to make you stronger, or opposition weaker. Know thy enemy. Only so you'll be able to exploit their weak spots. And when you start exploiting them, you'll do so after thorrough preparation of several months: proper fleets in proper positions, your enemy diplomaticaly weakened if not at war (you've paid for) and financially broken... * Exterminate: do that FAST! Do that to the one you can subdue the most easily. Exploit what he has left, proceed with the next weakest. Repeat until you win. How do I start? If that's your first attempt in the 4x genre, you simply need to learn the game first: # Play turtorials. # Check Galactic Civilizations II: Beginner's Strategy Guide from the author of the game. # Read this page to the end. ;-) # Start a new game with "tiny" or "small" galaxy, "cakewalk" difficulty, two AIs, and just test everything: buildings, research, diplomacy, designing and directing your ships... Don't start anything larger than "large" galaxy just yet. The goal is you learn the game, not abandon it because of overwhelming micromanagement. # Ask specific questions in GalCiv-2 forums. # Have fun. If you don't, decrease difficulty level, play smaller galaxy, or abandon the game. The 4x strategy gaming has some demands that can't please everyone. Gameplay: the general economy model in GC-2 game is based on transformation of BCs (Billions of Credits - the name of the money in that game) into ships (military production or shields), buildings on planets (social production or hammers) and new technologies (research or flasks). Production buildings on planets (factories and laboratories) do not give more output "per se", but actually allow a player to spend more BCs to gain more output from a planet. BCs are produced mainly by taxing population on planets, but there are many other sources (check Economy). All income is put into Treasury, from where it is used for transformation. Player directs almost all game economy (taxation and spending) with sliders on the Finance management pane accessible with Domestic stats button on the botton of the Main game screen. Slider settings are in force for the whole empire. It is not possible to change them for each planet separately. * Taxation slider sets the tax rate at whiche the player collects BCs from his population. * Production capacity slider sets the general amount of spending for the empire. It is usually moved to 100% at the start of the game and almost never decreased. If it is set to 66% (starting value), other sliders will direct only 66% of possible spending, so the empire will operate at only 66% capacity. * Military rate slider sets the empire-wide financing of factories and colony buildings for ship production. However if planet does not have a Starport, it can not produce ships. * Social rate slider sets the empire-wide financing of factories and colony buildings for production of buildings on planets. If a planet isn't producing a building, is that unused production diverted into military production and can be used for ship production. * Research rate slider sets the empire-wide financing of research buildings and colony buildings for generating research points (sometimes called also Technology Points), that are used for researching technologies. * "The sliders problem" The basic idea behind sliders is sound: with just the three of them you direct the financing of your whole empire's production of three "products": ships, buildings and research. It would work perfectly if there was only one type of the building that would make output. But there are two: labs AND factories, and they produce only as much as you finance them. Setting the sliders means allocating money from the treasury to them. So, if you set sliders equally (33/33/33), then factories receive 2/3 of the "money" and labs 1/3. What this means in practice is 1 out of 3 factories does NOT produce anything, and 2 out of 3 of your labs are also NOT doing any research. However the AI is also bound by those limitations, so until player doesn't try a game on higher than "tough" difficulty level is the playig field equal. There are advanced gameplay stategies how to overcome that - check under the General Gameplay Strategies the topic Colony-build strategy: the all-X approach. * In Dark Avatar expansion pack there is also the espionage spending slider, with which player finances production of new spies. Since each new spy costs more to produce, can spying became quite fast a real money sink. Developing planets Planets are the main concern of any careful emperor, because they provide room for basic stuff every empire needs: money, production and research. Besides that planets also generate influence. Money is generated by population on the planet and increased by certain buildings (markets, farms, morale buildings), production and research by directing money to appropriate buildings on the planet. Production is done by funding colony building and 5 types of factories, research by funding colony building and 7 types of laboratories. Planets also generate influence, that can under certain conditions be used to peacefully gain planets of other players. Two limitations apply to each planet: * space for buildings (green tiles). The class of the planet directly relates to the number of green tiles it has. Obviously more tiles is better. Some tiles (yelow, orange, red) are available for building only after player researches corresponding technology, and improves that tile with it. Some green tiles with small icons in the lower left corner (Special_tile_resources) also give bonus to certain buildings on them. Planet shown on the picture below has two such tiles below number 4. * space for population. There are two limits: the main is food. Colony buildings provide certain amount of food, different types of farms add to that amount. Population can not be higher that the planet food limit is. The second limit is planet class, but is noticeable only on small planets (class 1-6). Population can not grow over that limit. : Note on population: the higher the number of inhabitants on a planet, the less "happy" they are (planet loses approval). It is not advisable to buid more than one farm per a planet. It is strongly discouraged to use 300% bonus food tile for a farm. Planet management window is displayed in the following picture: image:Planet_ex.png Legend: # Surface of the planet. # Green tile, where player can put a bulding. # Yellow tile, that needs special terraforming technology to be built on it to become green. # Buildings already built on usable tiles. # Dimmed pictures of buildings indicate those buildings are in planet's build queue, not yet finished. # Frame with available buldings. In Dark Avatar expansion pack player can choose to build also older types of buildings. Usually he uses older types because they can cost significantly less to build than newer types. He can always upgrade them to newer types when available. # Planet's build queue shows what social project planet builds, its progres and time to completion. The speed of construction depends of the amount of social production points (hammers) planet produces (ad. 10) # Picture of the planet, the current amount of population on it and the amount of available food for them. # Orbital construction frame shows what ship planet is producing, construction progres and time to completion. In our case planet does not have a Starport (it is in build queue). It can't build ships, so its military production points (ad. 10) are not used. # Production output frame shows 14 unused (in parenthesis) military points (shields), 32 points used for production of a factory, and zero research points. The highlighted social production frame denotes the planet has focus on social production. # Frame with more data about the planet. If a player moves mouse over displayed numbers, some will show additional info. # Buttons with more detailed information on the planet. Under Details the player can find governors that direct upgrade of older buildings and terraforming. # Frames with more detailed information about selected tile. If a building is selected, it shows what it contributes to the planet. If the building is in the build queue, it can also be bought. For that player pays 6-8 times the money that would be needed to build the building. * So what buildings should a planet have? That depends on many things: what version of the GalCiv player plays, what strategy he pursues, what is his empire's financial situation... But for a new player a rule of the thumb could be: a half of production buildings (colony building, Starport, labs, factories, powerplants...), a half of money-enhancing buildings (one farm, one morale building, rest markets). In Dark Avatar change that to 40% production - 60% money. Player can also specialize planets, but for every production planet he usually needs 2-3 money-making ones. * Caveat: regardless of how strong an emperial nawy is, if empire loses all planets, is the game over for it. Constructing ships Diplomacy and trade Developing empire